


The party

by magpie_03



Series: Down the mountain range of my left-side brain [11]
Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Ableism, Bullying, Chronic Illness, Depression, Epilepsy, Hiding Medical Issues, Hurt No Comfort, Loneliness, M/M, Panic Attacks, Public Humiliation, Seizures, Social Anxiety, epileptic!Tyler, joshler - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-08-09 02:57:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16441679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magpie_03/pseuds/magpie_03
Summary: Socializing has never been his strong suit and right here, right now Tyler feels like he's about to break down.





	The party

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set in a future where Tyler got discharged from the psychiatric hospital and tries to regain his life ... with epilepsy hiding in the back because that's what it's like.

Socializing has never been his strong suit and right here, right now Tyler feels like he's about to break down.

 _This is a bad idea_ , he keeps repeating inside his mind. _This is a bad idea, a bad idea, a bad idea_ , his head informs him, his brain, a brain that is constantly threatening to kill him. Y _ou've come to the wrong place. You don't belong anywhere._

 _Social isolation has a huge impact on Tyler's depression_ , his psychiatrist reminded them, him and Josh, during the last appointment. Y _ou need to be among your peers, you need to talk to people_ , his psychologist keeps telling him, looking at him with a face Tyler finds indecipherable, _don't isolate yourself, Tyler,_ which is why he's at a party and hides in a corner without talking to anyone. This wasn't even his idea – Brendon brought it up and talked Tyler into coming with him because Josh couldn't go. They clearly didn't except Tyler to join them (he could see it in the sudden look of surprise that betrayed Brendon's face) but _absolutely, this is a great idea, Tyler. You need to get out and have some fun._

He doesn't even feel like taking notes. His notebook has always been a comfort in situations he finds overwhelming or simply doesn't understand but there's nothing to note here, nothing to write down. Nothing that is worth saving, nothing to preserve. He can see that everyone else is having fun. By this time most people are drunk and past the point of small talk and social niceties. They're losing themselves the way alcohol makes you do. They're drinking and spilling the beer everywhere, dancing to Tyler Swift songs, and there's a couple making out in the corner.

Tyler clings to his glass of water and watches from afar. He's not allowed to drink alcohol and even if he did, he'd be too worried about the effect alcohol can have on his epilepsy medication to have fun anyway. The last thing he wanted is to have a grand mal seizure at a party where he doesn't know anybody except Brendon. People here are old enough not to call him names but he knows the look on their faces when he comes out of a seizure. He knows what they're thinking.

"Hey, are you Josh's roommate?"

Two girls are standing in front of him. He doesn't know them. How do they know Josh? When he nodds they immediately start babbling. Something about Josh and Brendon and the gym they attend and how cute Josh is. _I know_ Tyler thinks with a pang of jealousy. _He belongs with me_.

 Just right as he's about to tell the girls off and get some fresh air – the room is stiflingly hot, the air is getting thinner and thinner as the walls are coming closer and closer together – he can feel the aura coming on. Copper taste in the mouth, a tingling feeling in his stomach that is

~~rising and~~

~~rising~~

~~rising~~

~~but his his body is~~

~~falling it keeps~~

~~falling~~

~~falling~~

~~falling~~

Now his head is filled with wool. Inability to think, to feel, to control. Tyler doesn't know where he is or who he is. Copper taste, sweaty palms, racing heart. Panic filling him up like thick sticky goo that glues his tongue to his mouth, making it impossible to speak. He's half-aware he's grunting (and the girls are starting to notice) but he's too far out, he's

~~falling~~

~~farther and farther away  
~~

There are people laughing, they're talking but he can't process it, can't think, can't stay in this place, in this body. No control in a body that freezes and shakes, a body that growls and stiffens. No control in a life that is stop and go, a life that is hospital and pills, doctors and appointments, pills and pills, again and again and again.

~~falling and~~

~~rising~~

~~rising~~

~~up and up and up~~

As suddenly as the seizure begins it ends. Tyler takes a deep breath. Waking up with a clear head after a focal seizure feels like coming out of a deep sleep, like coming up after having gone diving in the deep sea ocean. That first breath of air is always precious.

Tyler wipes his hands on his jeans. As far as he can tell this one was fairly short, probably under a minute but when you're having a seizure the seconds drag on and on and on. One time Josh showed him a video of him having one his focals or, as Tyler calls it, his "disappearing act." He stared into space, a look of inexplicable horror on his face, strings of saliva coming out of his mouth. The video was two minutes long and he could hardly watch. Praying for time to be over is like asking your heart to stop beating – each tick on the clock breaks it into a million little pieces. How bad must it be for other people to watch him like that, the helplessness and shock continuing into what feels like eternity?

The sound of suppressed, nervous laughter gives him the answer. The girls stepped away as if they are afraid of what his body will do next but they're curious nonetheless, fascinated even as if he's an animal in a zoo. They look on from a distance, staring him up and down and giggling behind their hands. Tyler sniffs and fumbles for a tissue in the pocket of his jeans. He doesn't want to hate himself this time, doesn't want to fall back into the trap of despising his epilepsy and his body. He doesn't want to get sucked into the endless loop of hating himself for feeling helpless but the pressure on his lungs increases and he can feel dark spots opening all over his mind, ripping open like old wounds. He's already on the ground and he desperately fights the urge to kick himself in the back.

He tries to give the girls a small smile as if to say "okay, got it!" ("acting self-confident and comfortable will make other people feel comfortable around you," another advice that was given to him by his psychologist) but they're already gone. He's alone, again. Literally no ones notices he's here. He's a nobody nowhere.

Tyler rises from the couch – the guest bathroom seems suddenly so much more appealing, even if it's only to stare into the mirror and loathe the person he sees reflected back at him – and that's when he notices. A large, wet spot right between his legs. Waves of horror, shock and embarrassment wash over him. He wet himself and peed on the couch. Right on it. He can feel it everywhere, between his legs, on his jeans, under his butt. The spot where he's sitting is soaked – the couch is ruined. Urine stains are just as bad as beer but alcohol makes for a better story. "We got really drunk and spilled the beer everywhere" sounds a lot better than "I had an epileptic seizure and I'm incontinent."

He's had a couple of "accidents" during the focal seizures and his neurologist recommended a few things. Protective sheets for his and Josh's bed which doesn't sound so bad until you toss and turn at night and the sheets crinkle as if to laugh at you for not being able to hold it anymore. Briefs, which Tyler threw away as soon as he bought them. No matter how "discreet" they promised to be he wasn't going to wear them, end of story. He'd rather carry a spare set of jeans and underpants everywhere he goes than wear diapers.

But he can't remember where he put his rucksack with his spare set of clothes and the walls are coming danerously close again. There's no one who'd understand, no one who wouldn't laugh and make a face at "the freak who pees himself." People are throwing themselves on the couch right next to him and Tyler is horrified – he's frozen with fear. They're going to notice, they're going to know and he doesn't want to get up and yet he can't stay in this place forever. At some point he will have to move and that's when people will notice. He can imagine the look on their faces when it's all revealed and Tyler has to deal with whoever owns the couch. He hurts with embarrassment and shame. The self-hatred that's pumping through his veins is so intense it weights on his lungs and squeezes them together, making it harder and harder to breathe without choking. There's a sting in his eyes and it's not from the smoke in the room.

"Ty, you're okay?" Brendon yells from across the room. Tyler nodds and gives Brendon a thumbs up. It feels like forever when they spent a week together in the hospital and bathroom issues weren't a big deal. It feels like a part of Tyler died  and disappeared back then. He's watching everybody around him talk and dance and move without any stains on their clothes. No one is worried about not making it to the bathroom fast enough. No one is worried about seizures. No one is in a constant fight with themselves, a constant fight to hide a part of yourself you're too embarrassed to show in public. No one pees their pants. 

In the end, he decides to simply run. People won't even notice, he tells himself. They're doing normal things people are expected to do during a party. Partying, drinking, having fun. _They're not like you,_ another voice starts whispering. _They're not damaged. They're not a burden. They don't have to beg to be loved.  
_

He makes it to the guest bathroom in no time. He dashes through the living room, shoves people and almost trips over a bunch of rucksacks and coats that are bundled into a huge pile in the hallway. He locks himself into the  bathroom, his hands shaking with the sheer panic of people seeing him, of people finding out who he is. _What_ he is. What he's hiding, deep inside. Seizures and incontinence are the elephant in the room, an elephant that weights a ton and sits on his back, breaking his ribs and crashing his lungs so he can have his body for dinner.

Tyler is high on adrenaline and fear. It takes a few minutes and failed breathing techniques for him to stop shaking. He leans against the walls of the bathroom, his fingernails scratching over the tiles that are smooth and cold,  and it's only as he takes deep breaths, in and out, in and out, that he starts to smell it. The stench of urine. Medical, clinical, ugly. A smell that reminds him of the homeless people his mom warned him about as a kid. Men in their 40s and 50s with long hair that's matted with dirt, men who smelled of stale beer and urine and slept under bridges and in front of stores where everybody could see them, where everybody could watch them, the same thought lingering inside their minds: _this is disgusting._

Tyler's face crumbles. His knees give away. Immediately, as if to protect itself from his mind, from this thoughts and the world, his body curls up into a ball. He sinks his teeth deep into his hand to force himself to cry without a sound. The tears come naturally, they're everywhere, running across his cheeks into his hair and his body shakes and shakes and shakes with barely suppressed sobs as if to say: _sorry_ and _I couldn't help it_ and Tyler goes numb with pain, numb with the overwhelming urge to destroy this body, this broken body until there's nothing left. Outside the party continues, the yelling, the singing, the music and yet here he is, locked in a bathroom, bathing in cold sweat, shivering and crying like a baby, snot and tears everywhere.

He never felt so far away from human life, removed from normality, from humanity.

"Ewwwwww! Look! Someone pissed on the couch!

It takes a few minutes for him to process the voices outside of the bathroom. He's exhausted, hollow out. He's no longer a body, he's fear and panic and hatred, hatred, hatred. He's all cried out, all dried out.

Laughter. He knows what it means. It means staring, pointing. It means mobile phones and cameras and humiliation. It means names and faces that Tyler won't ever forget, nightmares and a feeling of panic everytime he's outside, like a flu you caught, a virus that spreads inside you, poisoning everything inside you. Stuffy nose, bloodshot eyes, puffy face. Tyler starts to tremble. There are no tears, no sadness, no words for this. He grabs the toilet seat and hoists himself up. Strands of  hair are glued to his forehead.

"Someone _pissed_ on the couch!"

_freak freak freak_

Tyler bends over the toilet and starts to dry heave.


End file.
